346 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Mr. Thomas (late of Lidlin^ton Park) said that having 

 listened very attentively to Mr. Corbet's paper he must declare 

 that it contaiued nothing which he disapproved cr which appeared 

 to him to go beyond the maik. Other gentlemen in attacking it 

 had introduced the game-laws, the right of trespass>,and other 

 irrelevEut topics ; but they had not refuted what Mr. Corbet 

 said in dealiug with the real question before thero. (Hear, 

 hear). They had biea tcld by Mr. Eamssy that they ought 

 to obey the law. lie replied that there was a time when any- 

 one who killed a hare or a rabbit lost his ears, but it did not 

 follow that the law was one that ought to be maintained. All 

 laws were not immaculate ; otherwise, perhaps, theie would 

 not have been so much agitation to obtain the repeal of many 

 of trieai. He agreed with Mr. Hudson that hares, rabbits, aiid 

 rats should be put in the same category ; and as regarded 

 legili.xate game, all he desired was that a fair arrangement 

 should be be entered into between landlord and tenant. He 

 believed that the best arrangement would be for the landlord 

 to make the tenant his keeper, with the understanding that 

 he would expect every year to have some good shooting, All 

 asperity would then cease, a better state of feeling would 

 spring up with regard to game, and they would get rid of a 

 class of meu, thirty years' experience of whom enabled him to 

 testify that Mr. Corbet had not coloured his picture too highly. 

 Tlie hardest case of all, perhaps, was that of the shooting 

 being let to a cockney-sportsman, a orrievance which para- 

 lysed all energy, and extinguished all hope. 



Mr. S. Sidney (Kensington) said three views were taken 

 of this question. The first was that of landlords, like the 

 late Duke of Marlborough, who thought that all such per- 

 sons had a right to do as thej' liked with their own ; the 

 second was that of persons who concurred in the opinion of 

 Mr. Bright, that all game was to be regarded as vermin, 

 and as such ought to be destroyed ; the third view was that 

 expressed by Mr. Shirley, in the remarks quoted by Mr. 

 Corbet, and supported by the evidence of Mr. Alderman 

 Mcclii, Mr. Hudson, and even Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Corbet 

 had set forth the results of carrying out the only rational 

 view clearly and effectively, not less effectively, because his 

 paper was sarcastic, comic, and amusing. On such a subject 

 ridicule was the effective reformer, for which all persons con- 

 nected with agriculture were deeply indebted to him. It 

 was, no doubt, essential to the welfare of the nation that 

 gentlemen should be living on their estates, and the 

 preservation of game was one inducement to them to do so ; 

 but, on the other hand, tenant-farmers were not to be 

 sacrificed to the gross abuses of the battue system. 



Mr. CoNGREVE (Leamington, Hastings) said that as no 

 one had spoken from the midland counties, he must express 

 his approval of all Mr. Corbet had said, and he was of 

 o^'inion that if landlords in his part of the country would 

 give their tenants what Mr. Hudson very properly cha- 

 racterised as vermin — namel}', hares and rabbits — the 

 tenants would be most happy to do all in their power to 

 preserve legitimate game. 



Mr. Bullock Webster trusted that the circulation 

 of Mr. Corbet's excellent paper would produce a good effect 

 on the agricultural community generally ; and suggested 

 that means should be taken to give it far more even than 

 the usual publicity. 



The Chairman said at that late period of the evening 

 he should not attempt to do anything beyond congratulating 

 the meeting on the very able paper read by Mr. Corbet. 

 As regarded the discussion, although there was great differ- 

 ence of opinion on various points, the speakers all seemed to 

 be united in this — that if there were a proper understanding 

 between landlord and tenant with regard to game, the pre- 

 servation of game, instead of being a source of ill-feeling, 

 would tend to cherish mutual feelings of regard, 



Mr. Corbet really thought that iu reply he might simply 

 read his paper over again. There was nothing to answer. 

 However wide some gentlemen might seem to start from him, 

 they all came to agree that the ovei -preservation of game was 

 a great evil, and that the maintenance of fair field sport was 

 highly desirable. What, for instance, could he wish for 

 more thau the testimony of the gentleman who sat by his 

 side, and the first farmer in England— Mr. Hudson, of Castle- 

 acre ? Mr. Hudson upheld the shooting of winged game, and 



still more so fox-hunting ; but he denounced rats, rabbits, and 

 hares, iu one sweeping condemnation, as "vermin." As for 

 other speakers, such as Mr. Mechi, wLo hsil appeared todiff..?r 

 with some of his points, they had been so ably answered by 

 other members, that he (Mr. Corbet) should not take up the 

 time of the mceiin-f by any further dwelling on them. But 

 Mr. Cressingham, a very mild game preserver, and if he re- 

 collected right, somebody else, had said that farmers had a 

 legal claiiii by action or otherwise for any damage done. He 

 (Mr. Corbet) could repeat not merely his own opinion, but 

 that of some of the best Isiid-valuers and agriculturists iu the 

 kingdom, that it wm next to impohsible to ascertain or award 

 anything like due compensation for the contiuuous injury in- 

 flicted by the over-preservation of game. After all, however, 

 the best compliment paid his paper had been the speech of Mr. 

 Ramsey. If nothing could be said more for the contra case 

 case than this, it must be weak indeed. Mr. Kamsey had 

 referred to his (Mr. Corbet's) ''figurative language," but 

 he should put this not as "figurative" but as facts to 

 the farmers of England. And he should leave them to 

 compare with it Mr Ramsey's disquisition on the law of tres- 

 pass, his sympathy with that "poor man," the game-keeper, 

 " w ho only did as he was bid," and other such argu- 

 ments. He (Mr. Corbet) would only further express a wieh 

 that the meeting should pass no formal resolution, but leave 

 the club and the country to draw its own conclusions from 

 what had been said. 



On the motion of Mr. Wilsher, seconded by Mr. Alder- 

 man Mechi, a vote of thanks was given to Mr. Corbet for 

 his cible paper. A similar acknowledgment to the chairman 

 for presiding terminated the proceedings. 



THE OVER-PRESERVATION OF GAME. 



SiK, — Englishmen are bred sportsmen; it isapart of our very 

 breath and being. We take to field sports as naturally as 

 ducklings to a horse-pond. Even our mimic games of child- 

 hood are a representation of the sterner sports of after-life. 

 Our earliest schoolboy holiday enjoyments are associated with 

 the bird-trap, the flahiug-rod, the rat-hunt, and the rabbit- 

 course. In after-years, as youth glides onward into manhood, 

 to sport well, to rank as a first-class sportsman, to knock 

 down a bird with style, to take " a right and left," and ride 

 to hounds with pluck, judgment, and skill, are aspirations and 

 attainments which rank amongst cur highest flights of ambi- 

 tion. Even as hoary age creeps upon us, we are true to our 

 first love — sport I and with joy we recount o'er and o'er the 

 deeds of daring, the casualties and successes, of a past expe- 

 rience. Whether iu the prime of youth or iu the decline of 

 manhood, no theme is more acceptable than the national sports 

 of England. We delight to talk of their effects upon the 

 national character, on their use and abuse ; and even the 

 committee of the Loudon Farmers' Club resolved to put aside 

 the sterner subjects of debate for one evening, to consider the 

 game question. 



Next to a good subject, the grand essential is a good man 

 to talk about it. In this the Club was singularly fortunate. 

 They wanted a sportsman, and a man of business — a man of 

 talent, piudence, and independence, and one, withal, well up 

 in his subject. They chose Mr. Corbet ; and ably, on Mon- 

 day evening last, did he sustain his previous reputation. He 

 even won fresh laurels ; and his name will long be associated 

 with the exposure of the abuse of game-preserving, to his own 

 credit and to the honour of the Club. It was necessary to 

 draw public attention to this subject ; and whilst Mr. Corbet 

 was both happy and at home, and even racy iu treatment, he 

 wisely discriminated between the advantages of true and legi- 

 timate sport, and the evils of gluttonous excess in preservation 

 — an excess which makes our country gentlemen mere game- 

 butchers and game-hawking poulterers, their system a curse 

 to their neighbourhood and their age, subversive alike to good 

 fee'ing and good farming, and obstructive to fiscal and social 

 progress. 



Mr. Corbet is " one of Nature's sternest poet?, yet the 

 best" ; and many a devotee to the battue will sink into his 

 shoes under the truthful ridicule in which Mr. Corbet has 

 wisely invested his whole procedure ; whilst thousands of true 



